Tag Archives: #ICryEasily

Charlie Ingram, several years ago, was elated when I reacted to his singing with joyful tears at a voice lesson. “Everyone knows that when they get you to cry, they are singing really well,” he told me.

At my first viewing of Les Miserables, years ago in Kansas City, I sat in tearful silence during intermission, and proceeded to cry through the second act. The Nutcracker inevitably reduces me to tears at the final scene. My niece Anna didn’t understand my body-wracked, Merkel-esque tears and quivers the last time I saw (with her in NYC) the big “Seize the day” dance break in Newsies.

Give me a happy or meaningful moment with a student, a dying moment in a movie, any dog in duress, and I’m gone.

So I’ve spent a few days trying to figure out what about the Apollo 11 anniversary makes me so weepy. Memories of a happy moment in my childhood? Wonder at the incredible determination of hundreds of thousands of Americans those many years ago? Awe at the vital spirit of discovery and exploration? Loss of a time that was easier, when we believed our leaders and revered Walter Cronkite? Grief over the fact that those days will never come again? All of the above?

Sunday morning. Two weeks since I’d last worked up the sourdough, so after making and resting the dough on Saturday evening, I baked on Sunday morning.

Why did a whole pot of petunias die? I’m replacing them with vinca.

Summer holiday is down to ten days and counting. And I still have so much to do. My new compost barrel is not going to build itself. And the basement is not going to clean itself. And the books are not going to read themselves.

I’m hurting today for one of my private students who is in some duress. Kids can be so insanely cruel.